The Eloquence of Blood (27 page)

Crimson with mortal insult, Montmorency reached for him, but Charles got between them in time.

“Monsieur Charpentier has been many years in the Guise household, Monsieur Montmorency,” he said crisply. “And the Guise household is in many ways the royal court of Lorraine. You may take it that our composer knows quite well how to conduct himself. Let me remind you that there is no fighting inside the college. I am sure you would never shame your illustrious house by forcing me to summon the college corrector.” The college corrector was a lay brother charged with administering corporal punishment, professors being forbidden to lay hands on students for any reason.

Leaving Montmorency silenced but seething, Charles turned to the others. “Now that we have our music, we will review who dances what. But first, let me present Monsieur Germain Morel. Our Maître Beauchamps is not able to be with us for this production, and Monsieur Morel, a dancing master of great talent, is doing us the honor of taking his place.”

Charles named the students to their new master and the boys bowed. Morel gave the group a nicely judged—but not overlow—bow in return and managed a few words of greeting. Charles went over the casting for Morel's benefit and then had the dancers shed their scholar's gowns and show a few steps in coat and breeches. Morel's anxiety fell away as he watched them. When Michele Bertamelli's turn came, the dancing master was open-mouthed in amazement.

“Opera material, that one,” he whispered in Charles's ear, when Bertamelli had been enticed back to earth. “Where did you find him?”

“He comes from Milan. He told me that he has a cousin in the Comédie Italienne.”

Charles nodded at Morel to proceed, and the dancing master consulted his score and addressed Walter Connor.

“Monsieur Charpentier has given Saint Perpetua a sung sarabande. Can you sing?”

“Yes,
maître
. All of us”—he glanced at Beauclaire—“most of us can sing.”

“He means that I sing like a donkey,
maître
,” Beauclaire said resignedly. “That is what Maître Beauchamps says.”

“Unfortunately Monsieur Charpentier has not included a song for a donkey,” Morel said regretfully.

Everyone laughed, and Charles mentally applauded Morel's effort to put the boys at ease. Morel riffled through the score and handed Charles several pages.

“Will you begin on the soldiers' first dance, Maître du Luc? And I will work here with the others.”

Charles had not expected to be creating a dance. A Jesuit in his position was supposed to be a director, not a dancing master. But yes, this needed to be done. And he did love to dance. He took André Chenac, Olivier Thiers, and Henri Montmorency, went a little apart, and looked quickly at the music Morel had given him. The soldiers danced when they threw St. Nazarius out of Milan, and again toward the end, when St. Nazarius and Celse returned to Milan and were killed. The soldiers' first dance was an
Air Animé
, after a sung chorus asking the military trumpets to sound. Charles had once used an
Air Animé
at the Carpentras college, where he'd taught before coming to Paris, and remembering it now gave him an idea of what to do with Montmorency.

“We must imagine our stage,
messieurs
.” He smiled at the trio of waiting boys. “The front of the stage and your audience are here, where I am standing. The back of the stage is there.” He pointed to the wall. “There will be scenery, but no stage machines. Where the singers will be placed is, of course, up to Monsieur Charpentier. But we will worry about that later. Monsieur Montmorency, you are the captain of soldiers and will begin there, upstage near the wall and in the center.”

Montmorency strutted to his place, assumed a dancer's fourth position, and expanded his not inconsiderable chest.

“Monsieur Chenac, on his left, please. Monsieur Thiers, on his right. Good.” Charles counted the measures of music. “The melody goes like this.” He sang the music's first two lines. “You begin with a
pas de bourrée
. Monsieur Thiers, yours goes to the left, and yours to the right, Monsieur Chenac. Yours moves straight forward, Monsieur Montmorency.”

Chenac and Thiers quickly went through the step, then did it again in tandem, adjusting their spacing to leave room for Montmorency to move between them down the middle. But Montmorency didn't move.

“Like this, Monsieur Montmorency.” Charles hitched up his cassock and demonstrated the step. “Now, the three of you together, just that step.”

Ignoring Montmorency's stumbling, Charles nodded. “Now, the same step again. For you, it still travels forward, Monsieur Montmorency. For you others, it reverses to the opposite side.”

Thiers and Chenac smoothly reversed their
pas de bourrées
. Montmorency's effort was at least in the right direction.

“Good,” Charles said brightly. “Back to the beginning and do that much while I keep time.” He picked up his time-keeping baton from the windowsill and took them through the short sequence three times. Montmorency was still stumbling. “Now, Monsieur Montmorency, when you reach the end of this sequence of steps, you will mount a small platform placed for you exactly center stage.”

Montmorency looked interested for the first time. And, Charles thought, relieved.

“From there, you will use your gold baton of office to direct your soldiers through their steps. At the end of the dance, you will lead them away to capture Saint Nazarius and drive him out of Milan.”

Thiers and Chenac, also relieved to have Montmorency safely confined, grinned at Charles and saluted their captain. Who tried so hard to look down his nose at them that his eyes nearly crossed.

The rest of the rehearsal went more smoothly. By the time three o'clock rang, the beginning of all the dances had been set. Morel gave the dancers a firm command to return on Thursday—tomorrow being the New Year's holiday—with their steps perfected. Jouvancy shepherded his actors down the room, the dancers put on their scholar's gowns and retrieved their hats, and all of them gathered at the door. Jouvancy joined Charles and Morel.

“Did all go well, Monsieur Morel?” he asked.

“Very well indeed,
mon père
. I congratulate you on your students.”

“Do not compliment the rascals in their hearing,” he said loudly, making sure they heard him. The boys swallowed grins and bowed to Morel.

Charles asked Jouvancy, “How is the play coming,
mon père
?”

“Well enough. I think it will all march together, now that we have the pieces in our hands.”

He smiled happily at his subordinates and took the boys away to the rhetoric classroom. Charles turned to Morel.

“That was well done,” Charles said, “Giving them something to practice between now and Thursday.”

Morel laughed. “I confess, I feared that if I did not give the little Italian something to practice, he would be bouncing off the walls and ceilings.” But as they left the
salle
, Morel sighed and his steps grew heavy. “It has been a relief to have something to think of these hours besides the Brion family's trouble. If working for the college were not such an honor, I would have stayed with Monsieur Callot and Mademoiselle Brion today.”

“Forgive me,” Charles said contritely, “I never asked you about Monsieur Brion's funeral this morning. Please believe me, I have been praying for all of them, and especially for Mademoiselle Brion.”

“The funeral was well enough. They decided not to wait for elaborate decorations and so forth. They—well—they wanted to have it over, given how he died. Still, it was very decently done by Monsieur Callot and according to Monsieur Brion's station. But Mademoiselle Brion is nearly at the end of her strength. And now, with her brother arrested for the murders—how is she to support that?”

Charles let them out into the courtyard, where blue shadows were starting to gather on the snow. In spite of the cold, Charles stopped and glanced around the empty court.

“Monsieur Morel,” he said quietly, “there is something I must ask you. How long have you known Mademoiselle Brion's brother?”

Morel eyed Charles warily. “A year, perhaps a little more. Why do you ask?”

“What do you think of him?”

“He is devout. Even overscrupulous. And easily upset. But he is not a murderer.”

“What do you know of his friends? His male friends.”

Morel drew back and shook his head vigorously. “I hope—someday—to marry Mademoiselle Brion. Though she is above me, I have hopes. I can say nothing more about her brother.”

“Because what you could say would further hurt her?”

“No! It's just that—there is nothing to tell.”

“I agree that he is not a murderer. But I think he is at heart a sodomite.”

“No!” Morel's face flamed with embarrassment.

“I will tell you something,” Charles said, “and, never fear, I will also tell my confessor. I do not care if Brion is a sodomite. Just now, other things matter more. I think he was with someone the night his father was killed, and if he will tell me who, it may save him.”

Hugging himself against the cold, Morel looked anywhere but at Charles. Then, carefully studying the heaped snow beside the path, he said, “I only once saw him with a man who might—who—” He gulped and started over, speaking at a gallop as though to get his words out without hearing them. “One day last autumn I arrived at the house for Mademoiselle Brion's dancing lesson. I went upstairs and was crossing the landing to the
salon
, when I saw that Gilles was there with a man I didn't know, a young man. They were talking very softly, handfast and looking into each other's eyes. It was unmistakable.”

“Did you hear what they said?”

“Only a little before they saw me.” Morel frowned, trying to remember. “Gilles said, ‘Thank God you are so close. If we could not meet there—' Then he stopped talking, because he saw me. They jumped apart and I pretended I'd noticed nothing.”

“What did the other young man look like?”

“I hardly looked at him, I was so confused and embarrassed. He was ordinary enough. Lighter hair than Gilles. And only a little taller.”

“Did you speak with him? Do you know his name?”

Morel shook his head. “We only had time to bow to each other before Gilles made an excuse and hurried him away.”

“Does Mademoiselle Brion know what you saw?”

“Of course not!”

“Thank you for telling me,
monsieur
. Your frankness may go some way toward saving him.”

They continued in silence to the street passage.

“I will be here at one o'clock on Thursday,
maître
,” Morel said, as the porter opened the door. “I truly hope you can save Gilles. For his sister's sake.”

After Morel had taken his leave, but before the porter could shut the door, a treble voice called out, “
Maître
, we are back! And look!”

Nine-year-old Marie-Ange LeClerc, daughter of the baker and his wife, whose shop was in the college façade, skidded to a stop in front of the postern, carrying what looked like a hairy melon. Her brown eyes sparkled as she peered into the dark street passage. The red hood of her oversize cloak had fallen back on her shoulders and Charles saw that cherry-colored ribbons were tied in her dark curls, on either side of her small coif.

Grinning, he went out into the street. “Welcome home,
mademoiselle
! We have missed you.” He nodded toward the bakery. “Are your parents well?”

“They are very well,
maître
, thank you.” Marie-Ange curtsied prettily. Then, social duties done, she thrust out the hairy melon. “Guess what this is!”

Charles bent to take a closer look. “Um—an ostrich egg with straw growing out of it?” There was an ostrich egg, though it wasn't growing straw, in the college's cabinet of curiosities.

Marie-Ange giggled. “You are not even close! Guess again.”

“Mmm—let's see. A wig stand? With part of the wig still on it?”

She shrieked with laughter and shook her head so hard that her little white coif slipped sideways. “Only one more guess.”

“Well, it looks a little like my uncle Edouard. But I hope it's not!”

This time her laughter brought Mme LeClerc hurrying from the shop. “Marie-Ange, hush, what will people—ah, Maître du Luc!” She started to embrace Charles, caught herself, and settled for beaming at him. “As you see, we are back. But are you well,
maître
? You are thinner. Surely they are not trying so hard to save money that they are making you fast through the holidays!” she said indignantly. “But there, the church has its own ways, and fortunately they are not those of the world,” she added ambiguously. “Your mother, is she well? So far away there in the south, she must miss you terribly at Christmas. Though family is not always restful, is it?” She rolled her eyes and glanced over her shoulder at the bakery. “We had a very nice time in Gonesse, so many bakeries there, one end of the village to the other, but I assure you, Roger's brother does not make better bread than we do, even though he has the oh-so-famous Gonesse water! Our Seine water is just as good and better—
What
, Marie-Ange?”

The little girl was pulling at her mother's gray woolen sleeve. “Maman, I was trying to tell him about my coconut!”

“Is that what it is?” Charles said with real interest. He poked a tentative finger at the thing, which felt as rough as it looked. “Where did you get it?”

“That's the very best part,
maître
! A sailor brought it to me, just a little while ago. Antoine sent it!” Her eyes shone like brown stars. “He sent it to me all the way from Martinique!”